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Arab Christians
Arab Christians (Arabic: العرب المسيحيين Al-'Arab Al-Masihiyin) are ethnic Arabs, native-Arabic speakers and those from the Arab World that are adherants to the monotheistic and Abrahamic religion of Christianity. Throughout their history, Arab Christians were no exception to the powerful realm that consisted of the Arab World, they established powerful kingdoms, became wealthy people and dominated much of the Al-Nahda ''(Arabic: 'النهضة'), the literary movement for the Arab people during Arab-Israeli conflict. Etymology The Arabic term for a Christian, ''Al-Masihiyin ''originates from the word "Masih" which is Arabic for "the Messiah", the Biblical and Islamic moniker used for Jesus Christ who is known as "Yashu" with most Arabic-speaking Christians rather than "Issa" in Islam. History 'Early History and Ancestry Arab Christians are native to the Middle East, Christianity was the second (third according to some sources) earliest monotheistic religion practiced in the Arab World and predates Islam. The other two were Judaism, and a faith that Islamic texts refer to as "Rahamanism" which were practiced in South Arabia. At the time that early Christianity arrived in what is today the Arab World, such as Egypt and North Africa, the former was not Arab territory. Much of the Arab Christians today are descended from many non-Arab natives of these Christian sections, such as the mentioned Copts and the Maronites of Lebanon, an Aramean-descended group that is today considered Arab because their native language is Arabic (mostly Lebanese and Israeli Arabic). These groups resisted and avoided converting to Islam. '''Arrival of Christianity in the Arab World The Christian Bible records an encounter between the Holy Spirit and the Arabs in Acts 2:11, "....(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!". Christianity was introduced into North Africa (which is today Arab territory, not the former) were introduced during Roman annexation, same fell for the existing Arab communities in the Levant and some parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The city of Najran in Saudi Arabia was a haven for Arabian Christians, due to the high amount of Christian preachers in that particular Arabian city. It had also been a home for Arabian Jews. Early Christian contexts were not written in Arabic, as Arabic did not have a main writing system as we do today. Most Christian texts written by Arab communities were in Syriac, Hebrew and Greek which were not only the lingua francas spoken by most Arab communities at the time, they were also the writing systems used for the Arabic dialects spoken in the Levant. The earliest Arabic Christian text was found in the Umayyad Mosque, which dates to the eighth century A.D., which was a translation of the Old Testament in Arabic.Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1 June 1995). [http://books.google.com/books?id=6OJvO2jMCr8C&pg=PP8 The international standard Bible encyclopedia]. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 982. ISBN 978-0-8028-3784-4. Retrieved 10 March 2012 The Latin Roman Empire and Greek Byzantine Empire later extended the Christian influence on confederations of Arab tribes in what is today Syria, Iraq and Bahrain. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids were two Arab Christian vassal kingdoms that served as buffer zones and protectors against the Pagan Arabian tribes. 'Arab Christian Kingdoms' 'Nabataean Kingdom 168 B.C.-106 A.D.' In 168 B.C., the king Aretas (Arabic:' حارثة'), whos origins are unknown, found and established the Ishmaelite state which became the nation known as the Nabataeans (168 B.C.-106 A.D.). The term refers to the region of Nabatene, where Ishmael's tribes first settled a region of the Levant between Arabia and Israel. These people were descended from an Arabian tribe known as the Thamud and other tribal migrants from Arabia. The Nabataeans' main center of trade and commerce was focused around the city of Petra in Jordan which became a flourishing trade center and considered the "middle" of the Middle East. The Nabataean kingdom was known to have stretched all the way to Madeh in'Saleh in Saudi Arabia.http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/Petra/excavations/history.html The Nabataeans used a distinct style to build their temples - which was the art of "carving" their buildings into the natural sandstones of the deserts.http://www.questtravelgroup.com/hl_sites_history/nabateans.htm The Nabataeans also observed and recognized the cultures of other surrounding civilizations at the time, such as the Egyptian and Meccan cultures. A great linguistic importance of the Nabataeans was that they were the first to embrace Arabic as their major language, something no other Arab civilization had done who most spoke Aramaic as a lingua franca. The Nabataeans were also among the earliest to offer a written standard form of spoken Arabic which came from the cursive variant of their alphabet. Previously, most Arabic dialects were written in foreign scripts such as Syriac, Greek and or Hebrew with the exception of the South Arabian kingdoms that spoke their own dialects. The Arab kingdoms later became targets of Roman expansion. Aelius Gallus, the Roman governer of occupied-Egypt had tried to conquer the city of Najran but failed to. The Romans later referred to southern Arabia as "Arabia Felix" which means "Happy Arabia" in Old Latin. The Roman emperor Trajan later conquered the Nabataeans, and established it as a flourishing Roman state. The Nabataeans later adopted Christianity as their religion, most of whom were Arab Jewish converts to Christianity. 'Reign of Philip the Arab in the Roman Empire 244-249 A.D.' In 240 A.D., as the Roman Empire celebrated their millennial reign as it came under of the rule of an emperor from Syria by the name of Marcus Julius Philippus (Arabic: ماركوس يوليوس فيليب), better known by "Philip the Arab" (Arabic:' فيليب العربى') (Latin: Philippus Arabus). Philip was born in the modern-day city of Shahba in Syria which was part of the Roman province of Arabia at the time to a prominent family known as the'' Baleed''; his father, Julius Marinus (Arabic: يوليوس مارينوس) was a prominent shiekh (an Arab clan and tribal leader) who paved the way for his reign as Roman Emperor.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12021b.htm The Roman province, which in its correct form is spelled as Arabia Petraea ''is not to be mistaken with the peninsula of the same name. It was he who allowed the Romans to make peace with the Persian Sassanids and became one of Rome's more influential leaders. Philip was also the first alleged Christian ruler of Rome, which is in dispute between historians but one certainty is that he was sympathetic to Christians of the Roman Empire. His unfortunate came at hands of Decius, a savage who defeated him in battle and took his place as Roman emperor. 'Ghassanid and Lakhmid Confederations' In 220 A.D., a shiekh from southern Yemen by the name of Jafnah I ibn 'Amr (Arabic: 'جفنة وعلى بن عمرو'), leader of a tribe known as the ''Banu Ghassan, emigrated with his family to Syria. King Jafnah and his descendants established a powerful state that spanned from southern Syria and western Iraq. The state was known as the Ghassanid Kingdom (220-712 A.D.), named after the death of their last king - Ghassan Al-Hourani. The Ghassanids became a close ally and vessel of the Byzantine Empire, the eastern Greek remnant and latter continuation of the Roman Empire that used these Arabs to guard the empire from invasions and outside-threats.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghassanids Similarly in 268, another clan leader of the Banu Lakhm ''by the name of 'Amr I ibn Adi settled in what is now southern Iraq and established the Lahkmid state, a reminiscent and neighbor of the Ghassanids; which lasted from around 268-638.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhmids The Ghassanids and Lakhmids were both one of the earliest kingdoms other than the Nabataeans to embrace Arabic as a lingua franca, giving the language a new status as a major language. Previously, most Arab kingdoms used Aramaic as a lingua franca. 'Shihab (Chehab) Dynasty 1697-1842' The Emirate of Mount Lebanon, a mountainous empire located around the mountain region of the same name with no exact borders, were ruled by two dynasties. The first ruling family were known as the Maans, who descended from an Arabian tribe known as the ''Banu Ma'an ''that emerged into a Druze family, with some Sunni Muslim members. The following dynasty was known as the Shihab (also spelled as ''Chehab) Dynasty (Arabic: أسرة شهاب) which was descended from the Quraish tribe from Mecca and Medina, the same of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Bashir Shihab II converted from Sunni Islam to Maronite Catholicism, initially becoming the first Christian emir ''(Arab ruler) of Mount Lebanon. The Abu-Lamma clan and other Arab nobilities also converted to Christianity afterwards, which was marked by the expulsion of Druze power in the mountain region. The Shihab rule dissoluted under the reign of Bashir Shihab III. 'Arab Christians Under Muslim Rule' The treatment of Arab Christians varied under different kinds of Muslim rulers. Arab Christians had enjoyed generally peaceful existances during the Umayyad and Ottoman-era rule, many of them taking roles in the clergy. John of Damascus (Arabic: 'جون دمشق') for example was a Syrian monk and priest from Damscus during the Umayyad-rule that led on the foundations for the teachings of certain Eastern Christian sections today, mostly the Greek Orthodox Church. He is a much canonized saint in most churches today, whether it be the Greek Orthodox or Roman Catholic churches. Isaac of Nineveh (Arabic: 'إسحاق النينوي') was a Christian bishop and theologian from what is today Bahrain. Harsher policies were enforced on Christians during the Abbasid and Fatimid rule, in which Islam gained a stronger foothold in politics. Palestine and Israel, which the Muslims had gained control of during their victory against the European Christian armies during The Crusades, had a large Christian population that most of the Muslim rulers ordered to be unharmed, who had suffered more harsh persecution under the rule of European Catholics. When North Africa was Arabized and Islamized, most of the Muslim rulers too, ordered their armies not to destroy churches especially in Egypt which had already been home to a thriving Coptic Christian and Greek Orthodox population. 'Al-Nahda and Arab-Israeli Conflict' In 1948, Britain's hold of Mandatory Palestine expired and was replaced with a Zionist (Jewish nationalist) state, which brought anger and upset amongst the Arab World and those in Palestine that culminated into the Arab-Israeli Conflict, most of the wars ended up in Israeli victories. This gave rise to many poets and activists from the Arab World which fueled the concept of an Arab nationalism, regardless of religion meant to rival Zionism. This nationalism was known as ''Al-Nahda (Arabic: النهضة‎) which literally means "The Awakening" or even "Renaissance" in Arabic - because Al-Nahda was not only a nationalism, but a cultural awakening meant to teach people about the trueness of Arab culture, and it was dominated by Arab Christians which included important authors, scholars and poets such as Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق‎‎), Emile Habibi (Arabic: إميل حبيبي) and May Ziade (Arabic: مي زيادة). Along with the phsyical migration of Arab Christians, came the Arabic poets and scholars. Philip Khuri Hitti and Ameen al-Rihani, both Lebanese poets helped into the development of Arabic studies in the United States. Hitti was also an Islamic scholar although his faith was Christian, he introduced Arab and Islamic studies in the United States while Rihani provided literary assistance for Arab migrants in the United States. As far as support or opposition to Israel's creation, it varied between Arab Christian groups. For example, those from Syria and many Lebanese and (obviously) Palestinian Christians tended to reject the state of Israel while certain sections like the Maronites, also from Lebanon, supported the state of Israel. Nonie Darwish (Arabic: نوني درويش) for example, who is a famous Egyptian American human rights activist and a Christian convert from Islam, supports the state of Israel and raises Arab culture as well arguing that both are simultaneously possible and achievable. 'Mass Migration to America' The turbulent conditions in the Middle East that included many civil wars in Lebanon and Syria, let alone the Arab-Israeli Conflict has resulted in a huge migration of Arab Christians to the Americas, mostly Latin America in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Prominent Latin American politicians and figures such as Paulo Maluf of Brazil, former Argentine president Carlos Menem and Mexican bussuiness magnate Carlos Slim are descendants of Lebanese migrants to these nations. Although they tend to be Maronite Catholics, their descendants have assimilated and are mainly Roman Catholics. Arab migration to the United States began as early as the 1800s, these were Christian migrations and at the time, the Arab World had been under Ottoman rule. The earliest Arab American communities was in New York City, in Manhattan Island which historians call "Little Syria", a Christian community of a melting pot of migrants from different Arab nations that included but not limited to Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. This mass migrations has devastated the religious balance between the Muslims and Christians of Lebanon, which had been a predominantly-Christian nation. 'Arab Christians Today' Today Arab Christians take up big roles and positions in government and even wealthy classes. This becomes especially true in Lebanon where one has to be a Maronite Catholic in order to be its president, while Sunni Muslims take on lesser roles. Although with the uprisings by the Muslim Brotherhood, especially in Syria, Christians had once more been experiencing turbulent conditions following the massacering of Christian villages in the Arab World by certain Muslim militants. Arab Americans, who are predominantly Christian such as such as Steve Jobbs, Tony Shalhoub and Ralph Nader (Arabic: رالف نادر) have contributed well to the politics and economics of the United States. Thanks Ralph Nader's work, titled Unsafe at Any Speed, ''laws have now been passed in the United States that allowed for safer automobile conditions for drivers and the manufacturers producing them. Nader still speaks native Arabic, and has spoken it since his childhood. As mentioned above, influential Brazilian and Argentine politicians were also Arab Christians. Carlos Menem, a former president of Argentina helped the nation through its most turbulent times. Although Menem had originally been born an Alawite Muslim of Syrian origin, one had to be a Roman Catholic to be Argentine president. Language 'Arabic' Arab Christians speak the Semitic language known as Arabic, speaking the respective dialects of their home countries. The Maronite Catholics are mostly speakers of the Lebanese and Israeli dialects of Arabic, with some Syrian dialect speakers. The Copts either speak Egyptian or Sudanese Arabic and those in Iraq speak the Mesopatamian Arabic. In the tiny island nation of Cyprus, there is a dialect spoken by the Maronite community which is known as Cypriot Maronite Arabic. To those Al-Nahda members, the Arabic language has been a very important and integral part of culture. 'Hebrew, Spanish and Portuguese' Due to the high emigration of Arab Christians in Latin America, most of their descendants are only fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, with limited to no knowledge of Arabic. However, in Morocco, there is a large population that can speak fluent Spanish which can either partain to Spanish students in Morocco or descendants of the Moors. As for the Arab Christians living in Israel and the Palestinian territories, they speak Hebrew, another Semitic language, as a second language to communicate with the non-Arabs. 'Writing System' The Arabic language spoken by most Arab Christians differs no more than that spoken by their Muslim counterparts. It is written in the native Arabic-Kufic script that Yarub invented. The Cypriot Maronite Dialect of Arabic however, is written in the Greek and Latin scripts and the Maltese language, an Arabic-descended language spoken in the tiny island nation of Malta is written in the Latin script. Although Maltese people do not consider themselves Arabs. Religious Sections Arab Christians follow a diverse melting pot of Christian sections, that range from major churches such as the Roman Catholic Church or Greek Orthodox Church or indigenous churches such as the Coptic Church, Maronite Catholic Church or Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Many of the indigenous churches are of non-Arab upbringings. 'Coptic Church of Egypt' The Coptic Church is native to Egypt, and was introduced by Saint Mark during the reign of of the tyrannical emperor Nero long before Arabs arrived. Saint Mark was one of four important evangelists that brought Christianity outside of Europe. The earliest texts belonging to this church were written in the Coptic language, a language that was native to Egypt at the time. The city of Alexandria in Egypt become a stronghold of Christianity in Africa, where the Coptic Church established its jurisdiction over the entire African continent. Most Copts are in Egypt, ranging from 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 followers (most living in Alexandria) with small communities and groups of followers living in Sudan and expatriats in the United States.Official population counts put the number of Copts at around 16–18% of the population, while some Coptic voices claim figures as high as 23%. While some scholars defend the soundness of the official population census (cf. E.J.Chitham, The Coptic Community in Egypt. Spatial and Social Change, Durham 1986), most scholars and international observers assume that the Christian share of Egypt's population is higher than stated by the Egyptian government. Most independent estimates fall within range between 10% and 20%,[2] for example the CIA World Factbook "Egypt". ''The World Factbook. CIA. Retrieved 27 August 2010. , Khairi Abaza and Mark Nakhla (25 October 2005). "The Copts and Their Political Implications in Egypt". The Washington Institute. Retrieved 27 August 2010. , Encyclopædia Britannica (1985), or Macropædia (15th ed., Chicago). For a projected 83,000,000+ Egyptians in 2009, this assumption yields the above figures. In 2008, Pope Shenouda III and Bishop Morkos, bishop of Shubra, declared that the number of Copts in Egypt is more than 12 million. In the same year, father Morkos Aziz the prominent priest in Cairo declared that the number of Copts (inside Egypt) exceeds 16 million. "?". United Copts of Great Britain. 29 October 2008. Retrieved 27 August 2010. and "?". العربية.نت. Retrieved 27 August 2010. Furthermore, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Khairi Abaza and Mark Nakhla (25 October 2005). "The Copts and Their Political Implications in Egypt". Retrieved 27 August 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica (1985), and Macropædia (15th ed., Chicago) estimate the percentage of Copts in Egypt to be up to 20% of the Egyptian population. 'Greek Orthodox Church' 'Roman Catholicism' Many Arabs or people of Arab origin are also adherents to the Roman Catholic Church, like the Coptic Church most of them are located in North Africa and Palestinian territories and comprise the majority faith practiced by the expatriat and diaspora populations in Latin America with a very small existant populations in Arabian nations such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia (Latin: Vicariatus Apostolicus Arabiæ Settentrionale) (Arabic: القاصد الرسولي في شمال المملكة العربية) is a Catholic church that operates in Arabian nations, although no churches exist in Saudi Arabia since the strict presence of Islam in Saudi politics has banned Christians from operating any houses of worship. Notable Arab countries with Catholic communities include Morocco, Libya, Israel and the Palestinian territories. 'Maronite Catholicism' 'Melkite Greek Catholic Church'